On Red Mage melee...

If all you was using a Rdm for was haste/cures/status removal/buff/sleepga/stun, you clearly should have invited a second Whm subbing blm.

Rdm can't do all of those at the same time anyway, so I guess that makes the Whm even more useful than it already is.

I'd rather have a bard actually.

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Originally Posted by Aleste

I'd rather have a bard actually.

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Is anyone else a little concerned what Brd/Rdm is going to be able to bring to the table at 99?

I mean one job alone will be able to provide
+35% haste
+12 MP/tick Refresh
Cure 4 + Convert + that 12 MP/tick Refresh (+ whatever gear they have)
+50% Slow - (+80% Slow)

I mean people want to discuss about Rdms awesome buffing abilities but at 99 unless they do something drastic it won't even hold a candle to that.

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Also I don't think it's a matter of front line utility > Back line utility to determine which jobs are allowed to frontline against the risk of danger, but if the reward of the extra contribution that job brings to the front line outweighs the risk of death.

In your example of the dragoon, clearly the reward of him being worth the risk of him on the front line was worth it in your scenario simply because if it wasn't you probably wouldn't have invited him. Similarly with Blue Mage, they are a LOT more useful on the front lines but when the fight gets difficult enough the extra benefit the bring to the front outweighs the risk of them there and they get relegated to the back to cannonball spam. Similarly in the past with Mnks and Chi Blast spam.

It's not just a matter of Front line > Back line to determine who's allowed on the front because when things get dangerous enough virtually no one is allowed on the front lines, and from there unless you can contribute some minimum level of contributions from the back line you just aren't invited period.

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Also, these forums aren't necessarily a place to debate whether something CAN work because let's be honest if SE really wanted to they could design it where you want your Blms on the front line and Wars in the back. These forums are more for finding ideas to accomplish this without it looking so silly as to revamp the entire identity of the job like above. This is why when people come here and just say "Rdm on the front line sucks, it's impossible" we don't reply as courteously because nothing is impossible to balance. The point of these forums are for identifying the obstacles that need to be overcome and brainstorming solutions for them (and then for SE to steal those ideas and add them to other jobs/gear).

(Also, watch your quotes, you quoted me, then attributed Duelle's idea to me.)

Apologies with the incorrect quoting~ however, I don't believe I've ever once said that its 'impossible' for a RDM to melee.

Rather I find meleeing on ANY MAGE it to be incredibly inefficient and as it stands, is far too risky in the games current design.

And I'll easily admit it because I've spent so long trying to get whitemage to be viable under misery.

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Originally Posted by Dart

I lvl'd rdm because of the utility the job brings, and now its my absolute favorite job to solo on. The only thing that I've wanted is cure5. T4's was such a boon to the job and I can't wait for thunder4.

Different play styles, different opinions as always. I see rdm as completely fullfilling its "jack of all trades" title, and as Ipreviously mentioned with wanting cure5 would again make it viable in party set up. I love the job and get great use out of it as it is.

Sure its lost some of the things that only rdm could bring to the table (vert, refresh just to name two). But speaking for me personally. A boost to our melee phase would not make the job any more enjoyable for me.

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sorry to hear that, It would for me. Better enspells would make this job everything I want. I'm not looking to beat a WAR at the physical game. I just want to be able to channel my jack of all trades into melee magic damage that is significant because I have all the tools to do it.

I like Tier IV as well and didn't expect to get them. That being said, I don't want to be a BLM.

I don't mind back up healing and nuking, but when that is what I am good for, and people still say, "I'd rather have a WHM or a BLM" I don't feel like I'm really playing my job.

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Originally Posted by Aleste

Apologies with the incorrect quoting~ however, I don't believe I've ever once said that its 'impossible' for a RDM to melee.

Rather I find meleeing on ANY MAGE it to be incredibly inefficient and as it stands, is far too risky in the games current design.

And I'll easily admit it because I've spent so long trying to get whitemage to be viable under misery.

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Well to be fair WHM shouldn't be a front line mage, RDM was supposed to be before SE decided it would have been too powerful a soloist if they did them any good at it, or whatever reason they decided to change it from "melee mage" to just a mage.

I had a long post typed up but the forums ate it. I may sound short in this, but that's more for expediency's sake than anything else.

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Originally Posted by Aleste

Hasting all DD's
Throwing emergency potent cures
Removing ailments
Weakening the mobs accuracy/attack/attack speed
Additional re-application of buffs (for those spammy mobs)
A large amount of utility spells
Additional sleepga/stuns for crowd control and NM lockdown

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The short answer is you can't expect a front liner to do all that. It simply is not plausible with the other things front line play involve.

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Unless of course, you're not doing any of those things. In which case, why invite someone with below-par melee?

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Which therefore means RDM does need melee buffs.

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I've seen you reference "had I not seen it work before" twice now. Care to give an example, or two?

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This was the meat of my post that got eaten. I'll try to type from memory with some extra edits.

RDM is not the only class that was defiled for the sake of convenience. There was another class at around the time Refresh and Haste entered the picture that ran into the same discrimination, the same insults, the same resistance and had the exact same problems Red Mage had (and continues to have).

Rather than a magic fencer, this class was a knight-in-shining-armor archetype that was designed with weak melee, which forced it into the role of healer and buff bot, much to the chagrin of the people who rolled the class to be the knight-in-shining-armor only to find themselves healing and buffing others if they wanted to see the content that mattered. After much ire expressed by the melee camp, the developers started looking for ways to make the front-line aspects of this class work.

They first went with Seriha's suggested approach by introducing hybrid gear with STR, INT and Auto-Refresh and front-line abilities that were leaning more to the side of supplemental melee (auras that increased group damage, attacks that reset the duration of certain debuffs). Problem was that the hybrid gear had such spread out stats that from raw stats alone the class was still way behind the other front-liners. Their supplemental melee proved worthless because they still could not measure up to what was expected of a front-liner, leading to them still being used a cure bots and buff bots.

The developers eventually bit the bullet and made a couple of changes. First they placed the melee aspect of the class and balanced it around being in melee gear. This means you don't wear caster or hybrid gear to front-line. Then they changed abilities to scale with attack power and melee accuracy for those who chose to be in the front lines. Then they tossed in stat conversions for the certain abilities of this class that scaled from spell power that you could no longer gear for because you were wearing melee gear (the short of it being that X% of attack power also acted as spell power for those abilities).

Then they added melee mechanics to seal the deal. My favorite of those was a proc from critical hits that made the weaker of your two healing spells or your nuke-type spell instant cast while consuming the proc.

The result of all this is the "lolmelee", "shut up and heal" and "lol ur not dd" arguments died after those changes went through. You could suddenly stand in the front lines, be as equally valuable as the other front-liners, while still keeping parts of your utility and identity without being this broken overpowered thing that dwarfed all other melee. The guys that liked to heal and support got to continue doing that, while the melee enthusiasts got their wish. The world (of warcraft) was suddenly a better place.

I think the above can be applied to RDM. While I understand that XI's game engine might not support certain parts of the above, the basic idea is there. Create melee emphasis, balance it around melee gear, separate it from how the class is currently played and then touch up and leave to dry. You'd make both camps happy and even kill the redundancy that exists when you have more than one RDM in the group.

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All in all, I would kick a whitemage out of the party if they refused to do their job. Same as I would kick a tank for not tanking. You have those spells for a reason, they make other jobs better; ignoring, or failing to cast them is NOT DOING YOUR JOB.

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The guy with a sword in one hand and magic glowing out of the other should be swinging that sword and going Seifer on mobs by releasing spells at point-blank range. The refresh/haste/cure bot model has been nothing short of a violation of the Red Mage concept and everything the class has stood for...at the cost of our class identity for the convenience of others. Enough is enough, really.

For the other parts of your post, all I can say is that mechanics and limitations can be put in place to keep things under control.

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I rather liked your idea to combat the difference in stave potency via:

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Job Traits:
- Arcane Combat: Your magic accuracy is increased by your main-hand weapon accuracy while under the effects of composure.

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However, given SE's way of doing things, you'd probably have to balance it out a little.

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Thanks. Admittedly, this was taken from my "Red Mage redesigned with stances" proposal, but modified to fit the class as it currently plays. I do understand the risk involved, however, as RDM would merit sword or dagger, equip that to boost accuracy for spells and then stack MAB gear.

The original version of Arcane Combat is available only while in melee mode, which has a bunch of other restrictions to focus on front-line play. These include reduced casting range for nukes to 5 yalms (AKA melee range), MAB not affecting nukes while in melee mode and instead scaling from a portion of attack power or STR (haven't made my mind up on this one), elemental resistance debuffs from enspells playing a bigger role (and make them same-element instead of opposite element like enspells II), emphasis on enfeebles, limited support ("nerfed" versions of our current spells such a Haste, Refresh, Enspells and Phalanx lasting a lot longer but being self-cast only, longer cast times for cures and possibly higher MP costs), and so on.

I just brought that up because I wanted to show it is possible to make one side (melee) benefit the other (mage), not to mention it is well within Red Mage's theme as the guy that stands between the melee and magic paths.

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Originally Posted by Aleste

I don't believe I've ever once said that its 'impossible' for a RDM to melee.

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Wasn't really referring to you as much as other people that have barged into the thread.

(also, were half of those puns in your post intentional Duelle?)

edit: not worth it

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Originally Posted by Supersun

(also, were half of those puns in your post intentional Duelle?)

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Unfortunately, I haven't the slightest idea of what you're talking about.

I did write this on little sleep and no food in my Taru belly, though. >.>;;

This may get a bit lengthy. I'm not certain. I'll try to condense about eight years worth of thought on this.

While I agree that Melee Gear for Red Mage could use a boost, I have always been under the assumption that it is more Square Enix's premise for Front Line Red Mages that is the problem, and is the reason why we are not getting the gear and updates we, in the eyes of many of the Red Mage players, should receive.

I've maintained for years that a Red Mage's role, be it front line or back, is that of a party catalyst. Opening opportunities for others to shine while manipulating the situation for us to contribute in semi-direct ways, thus our traits for enfeebeling and enhancing.

Before Abyssea, our DoT melee, when properly geared, was a fairly decent. This has fallen behind due to the tip in gear balancing (and the lack of spell/ability support to make it up, which was what enspells served as before). And I firmly believe this should be buffed back up. However, our burst damage has never been all that good, and I've always understood why.

Similar to SE's plans for Dark Knight, Red Mage's front line aspects were angled around the skillchain mechanic after it was implemented, and the evidence mounts to this as the updates kept rolling in. The two largest points in this are more recent, Death Blossom and Magic Burst Bonus. Essentially, we were being designed to be able to open skillchains for others, then burst upon them. The damage we were contributing was divided among the parts we are contributing to.

The problem is, this system was not only archaic but teamwork heavy, and thus slow and inefficient. Nowadays people can self skillchain with relative ease and otherwise spamming skillchains becomes more damage over time efficient. This really limits this utility to low man situations and small parties.

But because the mechanics is there, and Red Mage has the ability to push both Skillchain AND magic bursting damage, SE is going to hesitate to give us melee bonuses. Especially as we've got access to some fairly powerful weapons as well as the Tier IV line of nukes.

In the end, they see Red Mages as 'whole picture' job class rather than measuring and comparing it's parts separately, as we Red Mages tend to do. Which wouldn't be an issue if this system was better streamlined.

I realize there is a lot of call for more "Front Line Utility" but in truth there is very little that can be offered that isn't already there, either offered by Red Mage itself through various subjob settings, or flatly via other jobs. Instead of trying to take Red Mage into another direction, I believe we should hone what we already have in place.

In which case, many of the previously stated ideas, if put into proper balancing, would work very well. For some examples:

Quickcast: The system has already been implemented via Atma. Functioning as a trait or an activated Job ability the ability to occasionally cast a spell without timer would be very helpful to a Red Mage's casting load, freeing up melee time, which is our biggest crux.

Enspell III: Enspells with proper scaling for the 99 level cap are pretty much a must. A question of how they would function could be brought up. (Should it conflict with Sambas, if so, should it come with some sort of native attack bonus, etc.) But unmistakeably they should function similar to the Enspell I line in that it scales off of Enhancing magic at cast. (to a greater degree, of course).

Composure: Why this does not function on every target I do not know. Having it work on any targeted buff even at a reduced effectiveness (which then can still be enhanced with Emperyan gear.) would remove a great deal of the tedium that's involved with having a high casting load support wise. Having the accuracy bonus scale would also be a great boon.

Chainbind: /sam, Dancer, Blue Mage, Puppetmaster all have the ability to self skillchain. Dancer (and now Samurai) has the ability to set up a monster on it's own to skillchain. Making Chainbind an official debuff Red Mage can cast gives him or her the ability to assist himself, and the party, in a mechanic that seems to have been thrown under the bus as a 'do it yourself' function.

After that, some more low hanging fruit in terms of better melee gear across the board would be enjoyed.

Now to clarify I don't expect any of these to be implemented as they are or in the whole, but it comprises a nice wishlist of things that will bring Red mage as a whole up in performance, without pushing away from the enhancing/enfeebeling catalyst that's been in the class's root design.

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I realize there is a lot of call for more "Front Line Utility" but in truth there is very little that can be offered that isn't already there, either offered by Red Mage itself through various subjob settings, or flatly via other jobs. Instead of trying to take Red Mage into another direction, I believe we should hone what we already have in place.

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As one of my irks when it comes to RDM, throwing your hands up in submission because you can't think of any ideas is not a stance SE should agree with, nor should we support. Now, have other jobs "stolen" things that would've been nice in RDM's hands? Sure. Does that mean the idea well has gone dry? Of course not. Moreover, I'll pass on just yet more tier ups. Quick magic is also a no-no since it could mean nukes going off in your FC gear and so on, basically sacrificing potency when we're desperate for it just to compete with specialists.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

The problem is, this system was not only archaic but teamwork heavy, and thus slow and inefficient. Nowadays people can self skillchain with relative ease and otherwise spamming skillchains becomes more damage over time efficient. This really limits this utility to low man situations and small parties.

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Not to mention, good luck finding anybody who's actually going to co-operate with some random front line geared Red Mage off of the street, in any sense of the word . . .

That would require random front line Red Mages to stop meleeing in full AF/relic even in this day and age. If it isn't a detriment to other duties I'm not gonna knock it but almost every one I see trying to be frontline mage does it badly.

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Originally Posted by Neisan_Quetz

That would require random front line Red Mages to sotp meleeing in full AF/relic even in this day and age. If it isn't a detriment to other duties I'm not gonna knock it but almost every one I see trying to be frontline mage does it badly.

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That approach doesn't really work, hence why I keep saying front line and back line play need to be different from each other for a hybrid like Red Mage.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

That approach doesn't really work, hence why I keep saying front line and back line play need to be different from each other for a hybrid like Red Mage.

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In the sense of gear, yes, as that's the limitation of a game that so heavily demands min-maxing.

In the sense of practice, if you ever try to do nothing but swing your sword with maybe the occasional cure or self-buff, you're doing it horribly wrong. (Unfortunately you can't say the same thing for doing nothing but spellcasting, but then, that's why this topic exists, no?)

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Originally Posted by Seriha

As one of my irks when it comes to RDM, throwing your hands up in submission because you can't think of any ideas is not a stance SE should agree with, nor should we support. Now, have other jobs "stolen" things that would've been nice in RDM's hands? Sure. Does that mean the idea well has gone dry? Of course not. Moreover, I'll pass on just yet more tier ups. Quick magic is also a no-no since it could mean nukes going off in your FC gear and so on, basically sacrificing potency when we're desperate for it just to compete with specialists.

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A few falacies in there Seriha

On 'new ideas':

It's not throwing your hands up for the sake of lack of ideas. It's a matter of shifting the entire direction of a job based off of one crux utility. You're looking for a golden update which I say is just plain naive. Work with the system we have and modify it so it performs better, instead of looking for the 'shiney utility' that's going to change everyone minds about RDM front lining.

As far as getting more Tier ups, that is inevitable. Having what we're more or less designed to get function in a way that better suits us in the manners we would desire would be both more realistic, and easier to apply than flat out inventing a new mechanic. Besides, I've already listed a couple 'borrows' already. They just lean more towards the Hybrid approach, utalizing our spells to assist our melee, and proving more ability to streamline our casting which has always been our trend as a job. I'd rather see them preform that aspect correctly and have it work, then scrap it for a new idea that's even more likely to fail.

Quick Cast and Nukes:

It's seriously not hard to place your spell activation at the end of a gearswap macro instead of at the beginning. So your argument against quick cast is flat out null. Though, having control over when your quick cast operates was something I left open as an option for a reason. Either one would function well, an the trait would require only a minor shift in macro usage.

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Originally Posted by Tamarsamar

Not to mention, good luck finding anybody who's actually going to co-operate with some random front line geared Red Mage off of the street, in any sense of the word . . .

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I'm surprised this statement even comes up, given the current state of the game. Small group activities dominate with only a few 'random pickups' really applying. At this point in the game, you're mostly playing with your friends or long time shell-mates. It's not nearly as difficult to get a bit of co-operation in small time content.

Trying to use the mechanic in huge Abyssea parties, however, just isn't going to work so well.

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Originally Posted by Tamarsamar

In the sense of gear, yes, as that's the limitation of a game that so heavily demands min-maxing.

In the sense of practice, if you ever try to do nothing but swing your sword with maybe the occasional cure or self-buff, you're doing it horribly wrong. (Unfortunately you can't say the same thing for doing nothing but spellcasting, but then, that's why this topic exists, no?)

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Speaking truthfully, the two roles between front and back line Red Mage are different, in practice. Instead of becoming the primary responsibility for said roles, you are instead filling the gaps, or lightening the burden of your healer and support, as well as teaming up to assist your damage dealers and CC usage. Its a variable job that functions more on improvisation than a set duty, and that's the benefit and curse of it.

The Red Mage changes with the moment's needs, instead of trying to be a consistent. Again, the situation is archaic, but effective in smaller groups. In larger style events we have other methods of levying our trades. But all of this can be streamlined as a whole which, when paired with an increase of melee gear and a touch more healing utility, should be adequate to bringing Red Mage's various roles up to par, not just any single one because of personal preference.

I love Melee, I will always gear and work towards being as affective as I can be in it. But the sting Red Mage feels in terms of effectiveness isn't JUST melee anymore, it's across the board. We have an opportunity to bring Red Mage up to the hybrid it was meant to be utilized as. However, I don't beleive over-focusing on increasing just our melee aspects by creating a specific front line utility for Red Mage is an appropriate answer, as it ignores those who prefer a back line style.

We HAVE front line utilities, be it our old archaic methods (Skillchain opening + Burst), the newer ones that are less widely spread (WS procs, Elemental WS lights), or borrowed through use of subjob (/Dnc step/spell stacking, /War WS procing, /Blu or /Nin soloing or off tanking.) We can add to these if we want, but we're not going to have any better success with them as we did the current ones unless our core functions are further streamlined and better scaled. This starts at our casting and has to bleed into a better gear selection.

However I am of a belief that the streamlining itself will better enable front line usage, in which case the utility we're clamoring for would just be a placebo effect to attract the attention of the common mentality.

This desire for the "Thing that Only a Red Mage can do." Seems to be more focused on having the spotlight effect than a real means of addressing the rudimentary 'hybrid issue' that's been the ongoing argument about Red Mages in front line for years and years.

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Originally Posted by Tamarsamar

In the sense of practice, if you ever try to do nothing but swing your sword with maybe the occasional cure or self-buff, you're doing it horribly wrong. (Unfortunately you can't say the same thing for doing nothing but spellcasting, but then, that's why this topic exists, no?)

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With the current design and what is currently on our plate, yes. After a number of changes that kills redundancy and opens up magic combat, no.

A red mage in the front shouldn't be worrying about buff cycles and main healing. The problem is that we don't have the numbers (as in DPS) to back that choice up at the moment. The shift in mentality would be completely possible were it not for that.

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A few falacies in there Seriha

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Hardly. Giving us more of the same, as indicative of tier ups or not giving us new "golden update"ish things will not change where we are. Cure V would just put us back toward pink magery. Procs aside, if people wanted nukes, they'll be going for BLMs and SCHs first and there's no way we'll be getting T5s unless maybe the cap goes to 115 some day or something. I simply cannot see T3 Slow/Para/Blind/Bio/Dia happening because the T2s are merits, so enfeebles are pretty much left to new idea territory. Without a "golden update", you've more or less doomed us to mediocrity before even considering equipment issues.

And Quick Cast is still bad if random. Most of my spells begin by swapping into my fast cast gear (I don't bother with barspells) and switch to potency gear within the cast. You're basically telling me to give up at least 20% FC for something that, at present, maybe goes off 5-10% of the time with the right gear or atma. No thanks. I know casting burden is a problem for our melee, but whatever we get has to be constant and not situationally niche.

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Originally Posted by Seriha

Hardly. Giving us more of the same, as indicative of tier ups or not giving us new "golden update"ish things will not change where we are. Cure V would just put us back toward pink magery. Procs aside, if people wanted nukes, they'll be going for BLMs and SCHs first and there's no way we'll be getting T5s unless maybe the cap goes to 115 some day or something. I simply cannot see T3 Slow/Para/Blind/Bio/Dia happening because the T2s are merits, so enfeebles are pretty much left to new idea territory. Without a "golden update", you've more or less doomed us to mediocrity before even considering equipment issues.

And Quick Cast is still bad if random. Most of my spells begin by swapping into my fast cast gear (I don't bother with barspells) and switch to potency gear within the cast. You're basically telling me to give up at least 20% FC for something that, at present, maybe goes off 5-10% of the time with the right gear or atma. No thanks. I know casting burden is a problem for our melee, but whatever we get has to be constant and not situationally niche.

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The draw to quickcast is the instant casting, and reset recast timer.

Whether the spell goes of it fast cast or not you can recast it instantly again straight after.

Then you throw off your cycles when the next time you get to the guy you proc'd on it doesn't, then the following goes without for 10s+ and starts bitching about how you're a bad RDM.

Now you're just nit-picking.

If people still complain because a buff isn't up in less than 10 seconds from running off they need to get a life outside of this game.

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Originally Posted by Seriha

Hardly. Giving us more of the same, as indicative of tier ups or not giving us new "golden update"ish things will not change where we are. Cure V would just put us back toward pink magery. Procs aside, if people wanted nukes, they'll be going for BLMs and SCHs first and there's no way we'll be getting T5s unless maybe the cap goes to 115 some day or something. I simply cannot see T3 Slow/Para/Blind/Bio/Dia happening because the T2s are merits, so enfeebles are pretty much left to new idea territory. Without a "golden update", you've more or less doomed us to mediocrity before even considering equipment issues.

And Quick Cast is still bad if random. Most of my spells begin by swapping into my fast cast gear (I don't bother with barspells) and switch to potency gear within the cast. You're basically telling me to give up at least 20% FC for something that, at present, maybe goes off 5-10% of the time with the right gear or atma. No thanks. I know casting burden is a problem for our melee, but whatever we get has to be constant and not situationally niche.

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See, now I know you're not even reading.

The one inevitable tier up I mentioned in my entire debate, was Enspells, one that I beleive we need. My one wish is that they would function line more powerful Enspell I's that don't confict with a Dancer's Samba effect. Otherwise it would have to be pretty steller and/or possibly "First Hit" activation only. Because 5%-10% attack delay is a hard act to follow.

As far as the randomness of Quick cast. You're looking at it in the worst possible light. As far as it upsetting your cycle. That actually is bad skill on your part. If you can't simply say "Hey, cool, it proced!" and enjoy your free time while it comes time for your next member on the cycle, then you deserved to be called "Bad". Though, if people are crying over a matter of a few seconds, you're hanging with the wrong crowd to begin with. There's 0 reason to put up with that sort of attitude in today's game.

The Recast benefit of Quick cast would be best used for things like cures and nukes if you the need and can afford the quick MP drain.

But all of this would be moot if quick cast worked on a JA timer. I agree that it's a better tool to be able to do this manually, and I prefer it that way. However, having it on a trait woulden't be nearly the nightmare you're playing it out to be.

As far as increasing the Red Mage's healing ability, I'd favor Regen III over Cure V, however consitering White Mage has merits AND another tier to cover regen Cure V is likely what is going to happen. If so I'd like to see it implmented at a truncated potency compared to the White Mage version. But as far as completely avoiding pink magery, again, that's a naive prospect, unless we gain absoutely nothing more in the healing department.

Seeming there's an entire grouping of Red Mages that are in arms about not having Cure V as it is, what right do we have to tread on their playstyle of the job when we've been clammoring for years to have more respect for ours? Pot callking kettle black.

Instead, what needs to happen is to better enable front lining. If you create a frontline update with some awesome utility that is going make everyone to want Red Mages in the front line, you're going to trample on those who've adapted and enjoy the back line methods as they get told suddenly they need that melee gear to perform that golden utility you're asking for.


Put plainly, choosing whether to melee, or not to melee, needs to NOT matter, in the eyes of the playerbase. Rather to be some important thing to argue one way or another over, it can be a 'do what you want, you can go either way.' Set up. And while for most of the events now being laughable in difficulty or lowmanned, this has done well for that approach in many aspects of the game.

However, for it to be a global opinion two things need to happen.

1. Our base melee preformance need to be brought up to par. (WS Damage, Gear availability.)
2. Our casting aspects need to be streamlined for ease of use in the faster paced gaming envrioment.

This is just referring to aiding in a unalateral improvement to Red Mage to improve melee.

As far as inproving the 'direction of the job', RDM's direction has always been variable, functioning as a catalyst. This may be consitered a redundancy and unneded, but that is more a matter of tastes. (You're not obligated to have a Red Mage in FFI, but you can.) There are those who are obsessed with the statistical 'best' and Red Mage, by it's very nature, clashes with this. You're never going to reconcile these opposites.

( Just a note: For all the humm and hawing on how Red Mage is the Melee caster, people tend to forget, that all of Red Mage's abilities in the previous games were centered around casting[both in FFI and FFV]. Best thing RDM had in melee department, was default attack with well chosen weapons, enhanced magic effects. I don't see that changing.)

As far as 'new' spells an utilities for Red Mage. We're still missing a unique Enfeebeling Magic spell of the Thunder Element. I'd like to see this filled in by the time we hit 99, and can be a wide variety of possiblities. However, giving the choice, I would prefer it be something that can hamper TP attacks: The one department we do not have an enfeeble for and are feeling rather cheated on right now.

I don't mind our healing improving, but not with Cure V. It's the lazy and uninspired way out. I have zero sympathy for heal-only RDMs, though. They're playing the wrong job. As is, backlining offers its own benefits in safety and slightly lesser distraction. Those looking to be up front not only need justification, but a strong benefit to it, and that will not be achieved solely through T3 enspells (Let's try fixing our T2s first), Cure V, or our T4 nuke line fleshing out. Baby steps might've worked at 75, but we're past that phase with other jobs now being leaps and bounds ahead.

Uncontrolled Quick Magic will still be bad no matter how you try to justify it, though, and if you're relying on such for dire cures, you're probably gonna have a dead tank after enough time, anyway.

Just look around at all the other melee naysayers. They have our "role" decided for us already. You best hasting, refreshing, curing, and possibly crowd controlling. Some might profess they don't care what you're doing after, but let's face it, those suck up time and sabotages melee performance from the start in both swapping out of your gear and just not being able to swing as often as the dedicated DD. I ask, quite simply, what is wrong with RDM receiving the means to physically DD exclusively in an acceptable manner? "Because you can do everything else!"? I'm sorry, but I must've missed the infinite MP memo for life outside Abyssea. Someone get back to me when this proverbial super RDM is main healing, nuking, enfeebling, buffing, and meleeing for a DD's keep without breaking a sweat, because even in Abyssea, doing one of those comes at the potential expense of another.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

As far as the randomness of Quick cast. You're looking at it in the worst possible light. As far as it upsetting your cycle. That actually is bad skill on your part. If you can't simply say "Hey, cool, it proced!" and enjoy your free time while it comes time for your next member on the cycle, then you deserved to be called "Bad". Though, if people are crying over a matter of a few seconds, you're hanging with the wrong crowd to begin with. There's 0 reason to put up with that sort of attitude in today's game.

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You're forgetting how focused on efficacy the playerbase still is. Abyssea hasn't done anything to kill that mentality. If only put it to sleep for the moment because buff cycling during the entirety of abyssea was not necessary, hence all the complaining about how RDM had no purpose.

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Seeming there's an entire grouping of Red Mages that are in arms about not having Cure V as it is, what right do we have to tread on their playstyle of the job when we've been clammoring for years to have more respect for ours? Pot callking kettle black.

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They've had more than their fill and they can still heal? We, on the other hand have been tread on since the Refresh changed the game for us and it hasn't changed since then.

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Put plainly, choosing whether to melee, or not to melee, needs to NOT matter, in the eyes of the playerbase. Rather to be some important thing to argue one way or another over, it can be a 'do what you want, you can go either way.' Set up. And while for most of the events now being laughable in difficulty or lowmanned, this has done well for that approach in many aspects of the game.

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That leaves redundancy. It'd be better to simply let the meleers bring one thing to the party and the back liners bring something else. Hence why I mention front lining should not involve buff cycles.

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However, for it to be a global option two things need to happen.

1. Our base melee preformance need to be brought up to par. (WS Damage, Gear availability.)
2. Our casting aspects need to be streamlined for ease of use in the faster paced gaming envrioment.

This is just referring to aiding in a unalateral improvement to Red Mage to improve melee.

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This I'm fine with.

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As far as inproving the 'direction of the job', RDM's direction has always been variable, functioning as a catalyst. This may be consitered a redundancy and unneded, but that is more a matter of tastes. (You're not obligated to have a Red Mage in FFI, but you can.) There are those who are obsessed with the statistical 'best' and Red Mage, by it's very nature, clashes with this. You're never going to reconcile these opposites.

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If you sacrifice class functionality just to keep the class as a generalist, this is true. The problem is, the generalist design doesn't work and has been abandoned in modern game design for MMOs for good reason. Because at the end of the day, you get stuck with mezzing, healing, or "support" as in this game, no matter what your intentions with the class' hybrid nature were when you rolled the class.

It works in single player RPGs where no one cares about being overpowered or lacking in DPS, but MMOs are a complete different ballgame, and is something the original dev team for XI never concidered when bringing RDM over.

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For all the humm and hawing on how Red Mage is the Melee caster, people tend to forget, that all of Red Mage's abilities in the previous games were centered around casting[both in FFI and FFV]. Best thing RDM had in melee department, was default attack with well chosen weapons, enhanced magic effects. I don't see that changing.

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It's called helping adapt something that would otherwise not fit into the context of MMOs. Again, generalists are not a detriment to play in single player RPGs. The idea does not translate well into MMOs. Never has, and never will. Take it from someone who has been there before, been told to shut up and heal until those major updates that made my class go from zero to acceptable in the melee department. It'd also kill the word game SE loves to play with us, naming our gear with combat-related things yet the class as it is has little to do with front-line combat.

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Hatcher

If people still complain because a buff isn't up in less than 10 seconds from running off they need to get a life outside of this game.

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We've been conditioned to feel that way due to how long that mentality prevailed. Specially so for those of us who've been around since pre-CoP. It's not a bad thing. Just a sign of how a playerbase can damage the members within it.

For those that think RDM shouldn't Melee anyway, look at all the topics SE release on the main page, including the video of the new Sword.

I'll give a clue, they almost all feature a RDM melee'ing. So the question lies, even SE think RDM should Melee, so why shouldn't they make it acceptable for RDM to do so with gear, buffs or even enhancing magic (our supposed second speciality outside of enfeebling.)

I'm personally against Quick magic being part of RDM. It doesn't seem to serve any purpose except for me to use my finite MP pool, unwisely. Quick magic is Rapidshot for mages, but mages and ranged DPS aren't the same. Rapidshot is a great idea for ranged attack because you shouldn't run out of ammo as a RNG or a COR and all it does is increase your DPS.

I'm also against Cure V. We aren't healing specialists, we don't need to be stepping on people's toes. What we need is our own toes to stand on.

We could really use some RDM only utility, because everything that is good about RDM has been taken by other mages at this point and all we are left with is being told NO.

What we lack is gear consideration, job abilities, and spells that are functional and up to date in the current climate. That way we could be our own job.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

Speaking truthfully, the two roles between front and back line Red Mage are different, in practice. Instead of becoming the primary responsibility for said roles, you are instead filling the gaps, or lightening the burden of your healer and support, as well as teaming up to assist your damage dealers and CC usage. Its a variable job that functions more on improvisation than a set duty, and that's the benefit and curse of it.

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I would love to believe you, and mind you i feel that's how it should be as well, but that is not how it is. People don't want you for anything but Haste and Phallanx, maybe refresh, but probably not. If you have difficulty seeing RDM in the worst possible light, than i don't think you really have played RDM for very long. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but that is what I have to be to defend my favorite Job. We can share this job, but I'm not letting it slip into further mediocrity. Unless we get the 'golden update' that we are looking for, we are going to be playing the most mediocre class in the game.

Hyrist, you can say whatever you want on these forums, as can everyone. I'm just going to point out that a wall of text is a poor way to communicate. A lot of what you have posted has been gone over before which is why Seriha and Duelle take up such hard counter-stances. If you aren't going to read the 35+ pages of post on this topic thus far, you have to realize you don't care about anyone opinion but your own.

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Originally Posted by ManaKing

'm also against Cure V. We aren't healing specialists, we don't need to be stepping on people's toes. What we need is our own toes to stand on.

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It isn't about being healing specialists, we should never have the same highest tier spell as any other job subbing /whm and soon /rdm. We got Tier IV nukes as DRK was getting Tier III, we got Refresh II as Refresh one was made available subjob level, so it's a joke not to have a higher tier Cure.

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Originally Posted by ManaKing

We could really use some RDM only utility, because everything that is good about RDM has been taken by other mages at this point and all we are left with is being told NO.

What we lack is gear consideration, job abilities, and spells that are functional and up to date in the current climate. That way we could be our own job.

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I don't disagree with this.

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Hatcher

It isn't about being healing specialists, we should never have the same highest tier spell as any other job subbing /whm and soon /rdm. We got Tier IV nukes as DRK was getting Tier III, we got Refresh II as Refresh one was made available subjob level, so it's a joke not to have a higher tier Cure.

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So long as Red Knight is available, i don't really care if Pink mage is as well.

But they need to come out at the same time. We don't need anymore precedent tell us how to play our job.

Forgive me if I cluster some of these statements together as you guys seem to be parroting each other.

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Cure V...

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Is likely inevitable. You can call it lazy, uninspired, dangerous, or every other insult you wish, but the only argument against this spell is the fear of Red Mage being pigeon-holed into the healer role. A fear I share. However, if streamlines and updates to Red Mage are done properly, the fact that we have Cure V won't matter.

Those who have played Red Mages on the front lines for years, have done so spiting the so called 'common wisdom' of players. It was simply the only way to prove that it was viable. This truth will be neigh impossible to change without breaking the job entirely, or both reasserting and streamlining our initial contributions to a party, ON TOP of some sort of additional utility (or further emphasis on what we have).

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Generalist vs Specalist

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There is two facts that need to be acknowledged about Red Mage.

1. It is a Generalist, period. There is no changing this without cutting out half of it's spell library and abilities. This is both the blessing and the curse of the job. However...

2. It HAS a Specialist Function 2 actually.: Enfeebling and Enhancing. But they both have problems right now.

Enfeebling:
In the rapid increase in melee performance that has done nothing but climb over the years, enfeebling has become less and less of a prominent role. This is a flaw in the game's design, not with the design of Red Mage as a class. If we are going to be important, for a large group role, there needs to be a reason why enfeebles are useful.

This means:

- Monsters need to endure long enough for applications of enfeebles to be useful
and/or
- We need to have the ability to apply multiple debuffs upon a monster instantaneously or through a very short time period.

Additionally
- Boss Monsters need to be more vulnerable to enfeebles in general.


Right now as it stands, procs have supplanted our reason for being in the enfeebling department.


Enhancing:

Enhancing, should be our secondary role, but has become our primary due to how efficiently monsters are slain. However, as it stands, what we offer as enhancers is outdone by every other existing support class out there. As much as Seriha comments about Red Mages not having infinite MP pools outside of Abyssea, this is in complete ignorance of the fact that evey other MP pool of every other mage class nearly doubled when Convert became available via subjob. Additionally, Refresh is such a readily available commodity with the advent of Refresh being subable , and Red Mage gaining Refresh II, that a Red Mage's own 'support' role has become unneeded.

Before we even touch the Melee aspect, this issue needs to be regarded. NOT by simply adjusting Red Mage, though some issues can be addressed this way (debuff-ga spells would solve debuffing multiple cannon-fodder issue. This should not be tied to a particular subjob either). The large group gameplay mechanic needs to change.

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Front Line Utility

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This needs it's own topic, as 'Melee' is a hornet's nest of issues. I may start a new topic myself to focus this topic and allow us to break it down further. But I'll touch the basics here.

Whatever 'Utility' we have in front line, it will break down into these basics.

Abilities that inflict new/increase existing enfeebeling effects on the monster.
Abilities that create new or increase existing enhancing effects on the party.
Abilities that inflict greater damage.
Abilities that recover the party.

That's the fundamental roots for every ability in this game, and the majority of them are covered. Keep in mind, that we're also balancing against our already superb soloing ability.

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Front Line and Back Line Roles

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As much as people believe the common wisdom that Red Mage should cycle in the front line. It's simply not how it operates in practice. Ask members that have doing it for getting close to a decade now such as myself, Zafire, Starfox, and a plethora of others who have been doggedly sticking to this sort of function on Red Mage since our first days in Vana'Diel. As Seriha has been so keen to point out, our own MP pools are not limited, and casting time HARMS our general output. But if there is to be any encouragement made to Red Mage front lines, it MUST be done on the premise that doing so limits our other functions of support. Or else any change is going to fall flat under the argument "You' still need to refresh!"

There are two methods that I can see working to enforce this:

1. A short duration, stacking enfeeble related directly to our melee. (Read: A stacking en-debuff.)
2. A stance that further hampers our repeat casting as Composure did in extending our recast timers.

Personally I would prefer the first. However, to accomplish that, what buffs we do spread around, like haste and Refresh II, would have to be extended in duration, THUS I mentioned first post I ever made on these boards, that Composure needs to function on party targets natively, even if it is just a reduced effectiveness. That way at least we're able to provide some support to parties while adding this utility. Put plainly, I don't' believe our front line utility should supplant the job as a whole.

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Quick-Cast

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Some form of Double Cast should have been a root part of Red Mage well before this point, and I'm not just talking our 2 hour ability. Right now, we suffer from a casting load problem, be it front line or back. Fast Cast simply does not meet the demands when cycling, and while a Composure increase could regard this partially, a controlled quick cast would increase our overall functionality considerably in every department. In the situation in which you would have say, 2 other people to refresh besides yourself, this ability would the 'cycle' concept neatly.

As far as increasing your MP drain with it, that would be a balance factor to the ability, and would keep Nuke-Spamming with it in check. But it still would assist our utility in say, taking advantage of an accidental Skillchain to burst on. (Or double bursting on a planned one.)

In the end, it's an accessory. One that would further assist in the streamlining of the job's current functions. As we're seeing a passive form being put to use in game mechanics already, it shouldn't be a stretch for SE to finally give Red Mage this ability (preferably as a JA).

Anyways, there's quite a bit of work that would need to be done to Red Mage to make it viable. My point is you can't simply tack on a new mechanic to an existing base without fixing the broken base, and a lot of it has to do with the surrounding gameplay, not just Red Mage itself.


As a personal note to ManaKing.

As Seriha can attest to this, I've been playing Red Mage a very, very long time. It is my only passion in FFXI and truly the only job I'll ever invest in. (I'll put it this way. FFXIV won't hold a candle with me until they implement the job in there, I'm that attached/obsessed.)

As far as the long posts, you're going to have to get used to them. A 35 page argument on Red Mage front line is nothing compared to the years of debate and analysis that has been done on this subject. The condition of the job as it is now is just re-stirring a very old pot.

That said, breaking apart the subject matter into separate threads would be helpful keeping my post size smaller.

I'm sure WARs would love it if they could get Berserk II, because it's not fair everyone 30+ can sub them and it be just as effective. Hint: There's more to the healing game than simply a cure tier. So, let all these /WHMs stealing our jerbs march in without their hMP gear, enfeebles, fast cast, and an actual MP pool and can actually do things without atma holding them up.

As for Hyrist, if I'm not mistaken, a fair chunk of his RDM experience comes through duoing with his DNC friend/girlfriend/wife or whatever. I wouldn't call a consistent duo or mini-static your typical RDM environment, nor does it readily subject you to the demands and horrors of the PUG experience. I don't miss breaking my back at 75 for my LS pretending to be a WHM in RDM's clothing, and I am opposed to those days returning. Regardless of then and now, the freedom to play how we wish doesn't exist in a truly compromising manner. There's a preferred side with all its "rules" and expectations. Meanwhile, a third of the job collects dust, okayed only when we're solo (and thus not "wasting" the time of our rule-setters) or doing things that don't matter. To be blunt, anything we do in game should matter, as it otherwise implies a lack of purpose.

You are Mistaken.

Ex Fiancee was a WHM, I barely played with her due to the job dynamics that kept WHM and RDM seperate from each other.

My current friend I play with is a Dancer, who I do Duo with currently.

Neither of these make the majority of my playtime.

I'd like it if you'd quit dismissing me based off of false presumptions. Even while I was not playing, I was following the RDM dynamic very closely. It's nothing less than an obsession.

As an additional note, you're taking what I say out of the context of the posts. To go back two posts now, what I meant when I said that taking the front or back line shouldn't matter, is that each aspect of Red Mage should come with a viable, acknowledgment benefit. To the point where, for some odd reason, you're stuck with two Red Mages in the group, having them preform with one in the back line, and one in the front, would not be met with horrible redundancy.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

As a personal note to ManaKing.

As Seriha can attest to this, I've been playing Red Mage a very, very long time. It is my only passion in FFXI and truly the only job I'll ever invest in. (I'll put it this way. FFXIV won't hold a candle with me until they implement the job in there, I'm that attached/obsessed.)

As far as the long posts, you're going to have to get used to them. A 35 page argument on Red Mage front line is nothing compared to the years of debate and analysis that has been done on this subject. The condition of the job as it is now is just re-stirring a very old pot.

That said, breaking apart the subject matter into separate threads would be helpful keeping my post size smaller.

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Welcome aboard and thank you. I don't expect you to post smaller responses because I asked you, I'm just saying it is easier to respond to specific ideas when they are bite sized instead of an entire page.

The same redundancy pretty much exists with WHM, which was partly why we got stuck shouldering EXP parties in the ToAU days. And really, unless SE did something god awful like make the Haste spell stackable up to magic cap from different people, there's nothing that can really change existing redundancies between RDMs without adding new and unique things. If the back-liner wanted to Haste, Refresh, use our current enfeebles, and main heal? More power to 'em. Meanwhile, the new stuff most definitely needs the melee slant, and whatever it is needs to justify the "risk" of the RDM being up front to both themselves and the party. Anything short of that will change nothing and may as well be another Shield Mastery update.

In short, we have to offer good damage, stronger utility (be it buffs or debuffs), or some combination of the two. And allowing any of that to be done from afar pretty much defeats the purpose, as it's back to slapping the staves to our backs and playing back-line mage.

As for how you play, it doesn't change my implied point, and that's how a RDM can't put their flag up with a DD sub explaining that they're only interested in meleeing in a search comment only to either never receive an invite or get harassed into trying to be a healer. People being desperate for support is one thing, but our martial side simply isn't even a consideration to the general populace, and for mathematically backed reasons that all tie to into equipment and (fixable) game mechanics. While we're not exactly apart on the want for each side to have its purpose, I'm of the mind that our mage end is pretty much set (short of SE going full-tilt on the enfeebler aspect, but that can also include melee integration). On the other, seeing people like RCD babble about how RDM melee is fine while he runs around with underleveled subs and bad math dumps isn't helping, nor do people who live in these magical worlds where community perceptions and stereotypes seemingly don't apply. In effect, if you can't PUG without getting your ass reamed by all the naysayers, it's not enough.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

There is two facts that need to be acknowledged about Red Mage.

1. It is a Generalist, period. There is no changing this without cutting out half of it's spell library and abilities.

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False. Adjustments in potency, resources consumed and such can be the pivot points of the class depending on what you want to do. The goal there is to keep your utility intact while still being proficient at the role you, the player, has chosen. Cures being more expensive or more inconvenient to cast outside of mechanics that allow you to do so, nukes costing more and/or having shorter cast ranges and so on.

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2. It HAS a Specialist Function 2 actually.: Enfeebling and Enhancing. But they both have problems right now.

Enfeebling:
In the rapid increase in melee performance that has done nothing but climb over the years, enfeebling has become less and less of a prominent role. This is a flaw in the game's design, not with the design of Red Mage as a class. If we are going to be important, for a large group role, there needs to be a reason why enfeebles are useful.

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It's not necessary to make enfeebles super important. A part of what we bring to the table, sure. The whole bag, no.

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Additionally
- Boss Monsters need to be more vulnerable to enfeebles in general.

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Yes and no. More enfeebles working on a boss is fine, provided enfeebling as a whole gets a facelift to make it part of the front or back line roles without being an entire role in and of itself.

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Enhancing:

Enhancing, should be our secondary role, but has become our primary due to how efficiently monsters are slain. However, as it stands, what we offer as enhancers is outdone by every other existing support class out there. As much as Seriha comments about Red Mages not having infinite MP pools outside of Abyssea, this is in complete ignorance of the fact that evey other MP pool of every other mage class nearly doubled when Convert became available via subjob. Additionally, Refresh is such a readily available commodity with the advent of Refresh being subable , and Red Mage gaining Refresh II, that a Red Mage's own 'support' role has become unneeded.

Before we even touch the Melee aspect, this issue needs to be regarded. NOT by simply adjusting Red Mage, though some issues can be addressed this way (debuff-ga spells would solve debuffing multiple cannon-fodder issue. This should not be tied to a particular subjob either). The large group gameplay mechanic needs to change.

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The support role again should be a minor facet of Red Mage, not the whole by which our party value is measured. As I've constantly said, I wouldn't mind if Refresh was an effect that affected the whole group that procced after using my suggested JA, Spellblade. That makes refresh a tertiary, thus minor, aspect of the class. It also kills the stupid busy work approach SE took when they gave RDM refresh and haste.

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As much as people believe the common wisdom that Red Mage should cycle in the front line. It's simply not how it operates in practice. Ask members that have doing it for getting close to a decade now such as myself, Zafire, Starfox, and a plethora of others who have been doggedly sticking to this sort of function on Red Mage since our first days in Vana'Diel. As Seriha has been so keen to point out, our own MP pools are not limited, and casting time HARMS our general output. But if there is to be any encouragement made to Red Mage front lines, it MUST be done on the premise that doing so limits our other functions of support. Or else any change is going to fall flat under the argument "You' still need to refresh!"

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This I can agree with. This is why I've sided with the stances approach over all else. And why I'm so in support of mechanics that focus on front-lining while slightly (relative term, but I for one would not miss buff cycling and always being on cure duty) hindering support.

I'll say it right now, any debate that is hinged of RDMs amazing soloing potential is absolute garbage. Just because we can do it naturally as a main doesn't mean that it is any amazing feat that should limit our development. /NIN and /DNC are both extremely potent and extremely effective for soloing on almost every single job in the game. Just because we don't need them isn't a reason we should be neglected and passed over, consistently.

What NIN, DNC, or THF main has any trouble doing anything that a RDM does currently in solo play?

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Originally Posted by ManaKing

So long as Red Knight is available, i don't really care if Pink mage is as well.

But they need to come out at the same time. We don't need anymore precedent tell us how to play our job.

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Erm...huh? Did I miss something here? 0.o

Who opened up the can of expired debates. Time to post the cliff notes I guess.

Curing
No way around it. We do need some sort of cure buff. When nearly 6-7 other jobs can heal better then you inside of abyssea and by 99 unless something is done those job will be able to cure better then us outside abyssea as well something needs to be done.

That being said, like Seriha mentioned Cure 5 is just lazy. We are already facing a major homogenization of all the mages at 99 and adding Cure 5 to Red Mage isn't going to help the issue.

The ideal solution in my opinion would be to create another type of cure that we could spam when Cure 4's recast is down. From there create some sort of powerful enfeebling effect that would protect whoever is getting curbed long enough for you to spam your cures to recover him back to full.

Keep in mind this alternate cure spell doesn't need to be a spike cure like all our current cures. There are plenty of other ways to create a healing spell.

There are some other good ideas out there as well with other ways to fix Rdm healing without tagging on a 5.

Enhancing
Red Mage is a terrible enhancer. Look at your spell list. Now how many enhancing spells do you have that you can actually cast on other people natively? Pretty much it sums down to Protect, Shell, Haste, Refresh, and Phalanx. Now look at how many Whm or Sch can cast on othher people...yeah it's a lot more.

The only reason we were ever considered good enhancers was because we were the only job with the big 4. Haste, Refresh, Convert, and Cure 4. By 99 all of those will be available to /rdm.

Really, the only thing we will have left byh 99 is Refresh II which is VASTLY inferior to other forms of refresh due to it not stacking with mages Refresh 1 from /rdm.

Interestingly enough they seem to have passed the enhancing role to Scholar instead. I mean look how many new enhancing spells they can AoE to the party (ignore the fact that they all suck. Only a matter of time before they get a good one).

Back line
This may be blunt but honestly it's how the game is evolving.

If you play Red Mage solely to backline for any other primary reason except to be an enfeebler it's time to switch jobs.

Every other possible back line role that Rdm has a chance of growing into has been taken by another role INCLUDING the role of a back line generalist (Scholar).

Enfeebling is the only niche left to Red Mage. Healing, Buffing, Nuking, and every in between is better performed by other jobs.

And even still unless SE does some drastic changes I don't even see much of a future for enfeebling. All enfeebling is just a means to an end. Ultimately you are just trying to keep your party alive long enough to kill the monster (and proc in the process). The issue is that enfeebling atm is by far a vastly inferior way of damage mitigation compared to other methods.

Like you mentioned a lot would be fixed by adding some decent way to actually inhibit TP attacks, but as it stands now all enfeebles do is cause your Mnk to counter less and if you really need enfeebles the 5% difference between a Rdms enfeebles and a Whms enfeebles is not worth the difference in healing power by a long shot.

Rdm really only has 2 directions to grow in as a role. An enfeebler or a melee generalist. Luckily these 2 aren't exclusive. Enfeebling by nature tends not to take a long time leaving the rest of the time to be a melee generalist.

As for specific ideas. We've already posted a ton in whatever melee threads have cropped up on these forums. But as it stands atm as the 3rd or 4th worst melee job in the game (even behind Brd and Whm) there's certainly plenty of leeway to grow.

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Originally Posted by Supersun

And even still unless SE does some drastic changes I don't even see much of a future for enfeebling. All enfeebling is just a means to an end. Ultimately you are just trying to keep your party alive long enough to kill the monster (and proc in the process). The issue is that enfeebling atm is by far a vastly inferior way of damage mitigation compared to other methods.

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That is more due to the nature of Final Fantasy debuffs. Paralyze from a comparative perspective is pretty OP by MMO standards. Slow should be much more potent and much more noticable, and probably would be if bosses in XI had actual mechanics and environmental hazards to deal with instead of just knowing when to attack and healing the damage the boss deals. The same applies to Blind, Dia and the elemental resistance debuffs from stuff like Enspell IIs. Bio is more hampered by values being so small (the 5 and 10% AP reductions would be much more visual with bigger HP pools and damage values).

The other side of that problem is that the game has too many options for entirely or mostly avoiding damage taken. Utsusemi and evasion stacking being the culprits. Enfeebling as a whole most likely needs a facelift and needs some streamlining as well.